Gold standard in honesty: Scrap dealer returns jewellery worth Rs 15 lakh to rightful owners

Faridabad: Rummaging through junk he had collected six months ago, scrap dealer Haji Akhtar Khan discovered a stash of gold and went immediately to the police so it could be returned to the rightful owners - all 100 grams of it!

The Sharma family's delight at getting the jewellery, valued at Rs 15 lakh, thrown away unwittingly during a Diwali cleanup and Khan's extraordinary act of integrity is the sunshine story glittering through the maze of everyday 'bad' news.

Ballabhgarh Assistant Commissioner of Police Jitesh Malhotra said on Friday that Ashok Sharma, an LIC agent, and his family had hidden the jewellery in a sack containing household scrap before leaving for Kumbh Mela in January last year to ensure it doesn't get stolen. Some months later, they sold the scrap, completely forgetting the gold hidden somewhere in it.

He lauded the honesty of the scrap dealer in returning the gold to the owners.

Khan, a social media sensation since the story broke, owns a scrap warehouse in Ballabhgarh near Faridabad.

Recounting what had happened, he told reporters that the Sharma family sold some junk to him six months ago. Two months after that, they visited him to ask if he had seen the gold they had unintentionally thrown away.

"I told them to look for it in the godown. Had they come soon after selling it, we could have checked the camera. But by then too much time had passed, so we couldn't find anything," Khan told reporters.

And then, on Wednesday, he stumbled on the jewellery while going through the junk in his warehouse.

"I was checking some scrap and found something wrapped in a sheet of paper. I thought it could be their gold and no one must have taken it thinking it is brass. I had it checked… The goldsmith said it was 100 per cent gold, 22 carats," he said.

The scrap dealer then approached the police so that it could be returned to Sharma.

"The list of jewellery given to the police by Sharma matched the items found by Khan and hence the valuables were returned to him," ACP Malhotra said.

Sharma can't thank Khan enough.

Describing him as a living example of honesty, he told PTI Videos, "We had suffered a huge loss during Diwali. We had accidentally lost 10 tolas of our gold to a junk dealer.

"Haji Akhtar Khan Sahib has done an honest job. He came to the ACP's office and gave the gold. He called us and informed us that our belongings have been found. I thank him from the bottom of my heart. May God give him a long life."